Kremlin blames global supply crunch as Russia's far east faces shortages

Globaltrans Investment

09/11/2021 16:55

By Gleb Stolyarov
    MOSCOW, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Russia's far east is grappling
with a shortage of some essential goods due to logjams at its
ports caused by the global supply chain crisis, the Kremlin said
on Tuesday, responding to an online petition complaining of
empty shop shelves.
    "Potatoes are running out, only one shop still has them. 
The pork is nearly gone. There's no lamb, and almost no fish,"
said the petition addressed to President Vladimir Putin by a
resident in the far eastern region of Chukotka.     
    The petition, which has no legal force but has gathered more
than 40,000 signatures of support, also said that fruit, milk
products and eggs were hard to come by in various villages in
the remote region. 
    "There are some logistical problems caused by the
international logistics crisis developing in recent weeks,"
spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "The ports in the Far
East are indeed overloaded."
    Russian market players told Reuters in October that 
explosive growth in sea shipping costs was pushing Chinese
manufacturers to send more goods via rail across Russia, instead
of by ship through the Suez Canal, as global sea ports have
snarled up.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2R91RO
    That in turn has strained Russia's limited transport
capacity.
    The regional governor of Kamchatka on Russia's Pacific rim
raised the problem last month and said that some goods supplies
to the region were being delayed by as much as three months. 
    The governor of Sakhalin, another far east region, said at
the beginning of November there was a tailback of containers
stuck in ports in and near the city of Vladivostok. 
    A transport sector source told Reuters that Chukotka,
Kamchatka, Magadan and Sakhalin region all depend on
Vladivostok's ports for goods supplies. 
    Those ports have struggled with the influx of cargo volumes,
the source said. But Yuri Trutnev, a Kremlin envoy in the far
east, said the number of containers stuck in the far east had
fallen 30% to 5,300 over the last week, the Interfax news agency
reported. 
    Russia's transport ministry did not reply to a Reuters
request for comment. 

 (Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing
by Mark Trevelyan)
 ((gleb.stolyarov@thomsonreuters.com))